REVIEWS
Sketchfest: Jump in, talent pool is impressive
By Chris Jones
Tribune arts critic
January 9, 2006
Blame Jon Stewart and Tina Fey. These days, everybody has a sketch-comedy show (replete with DVD interludes) sitting in his or her pocket. Even middle-age people. Blame Steve Carell, the 40-year-old virgin, for that. This sketch renaissance means the Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival, once a quaint little affair designed to overcome the post-holiday blues, has turned into a raging Lakeview comedic beast, packing more people into the Theatre Building Chicago than this venue sees at any other time of the year. It's become the biggest sketch-comedy showcase in the country. Nearly 100 troupes with more than 800 performers represent great news if you're selling beer in the lobby this week. But if you hit Sketchfest at prime time next weekend, you'd better check the weather. Lines get so long you could well be cooling your heels in the street. Sketchfest, run by Brian Posen, clearly has outgrown its three-theater venue and needs to move. And like, say, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (which it is increasingly starting to resemble), there's not a great deal of quality control, especially on the rougher Thursday nights, which is when the not-so-well-established locals mostly get their shots.
But unlike some of its messier improvisational cousins, Sketchfest remains a well-organized and immensely likable event. And it actually has demonstrable respect for its cash-paying audience. The shows run on time. Microphones function. And when you've flown in from Los Angeles just to do your 50 minutes on Belmont Avenue, you tend to have actually done some rehearsing.Instead of just plugging ex-Chicago celebrities, willy-nilly, into some kind of nostalgic jam session between swigs of Old Style, Sketchfest prefers to focus on talented newcomers with the kind of hunger that can get under your skin. In short, Sketchfest is a rollicking good time.
From Toronto's Boiled Wieners ("You can smell 'em! You can almost taste 'em!") to San Francisco's Uphill Both Ways ("tackling such hot topics as spleen-stealing ATM fees"), Midwestern skit-lovers can find varying degrees of hog heaven between now and Sunday. You can even see the USA Bagel Players, presenters of "NaperVegas," a feast of "Oprah fanaticism, commuting and teen angst." Do they have Naperville down, or what? So what does watching eight hours of Sketchfest over a single weekend tell you about the state of comedic writing? It suggests it's pretty healthy. And increasingly diverse. Thanks in no small way to the innovations at Second City, sketch comedy now has distinct, healthy strands. For sure, the festival isn't all made up of gems. Those ubiquitous DVD interludes rarely work in a festival setting. Women in mixed groups (especially when they are trapped in a sea of men) still often find themselves in demeaning sexual situations, which is why the all-female troupes are so important. And at least a couple of groups seem composed of geeks trying (and failing) to overcome their geekdom with comedy. Back to the slide rules, boys and girls. A hip set of glasses and a punch line doesn't make you cool.
Some of the highlights of eight-plus hours of comedy during the opening Sketchfest weekend:
Best Performers: Sporting their trademark bloodied aprons, the all-female New York-based "MEAT" combine subtlety with clever writing, intense acting and a palpable vulnerability. Highlights of their new show include a tribute to Velvet Scrunchy, the only a cappella punk band in the world, and a hysterical musical look at the angst that goes into burning a mix-CD -- "some Muppets so he'll think I'm sweet" -- for a potential lover.
Best Troupe to Watch in the Future: "Back of the Line" is made up of college-age kids who are terrific writers.Experience is limited, but the talents are supersized. The best stuff includes mournful letters home from camp in the noir tradition ("Dear mom and dad? Where is the camp, there's no one here") and a hapless theater troupe doing "Waiting for Lefty" and including a simultaneous, director's DVD-style narration between the lines ("Joey and I had a huge disagreement over the delivery of these lines").Best Show to See When You're Next in L.A.: Run by geeky ex-Chicagoan Michael McCarthy, "Big News" is a Hollywood fixture that creates weekly shows based on news from the previous seven days. The huge cast visiting Chicago has some clunkers therein, but the material is smart and witty. This week's show included a detailed re-creation of "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" in honor of Farris Hassein, the Florida teen who took off for Iraq, and a version of Charlie Brown reconfigured as a tribute to Michael Brown, the hapless former head of FEMA.If a guy with a moon face saying "Good Grief! Everyone wants a handout from the federal government" makes you giggle, then Sketchfest is for you.The Chicago Sketch Comedy Festival runs through Sunday at the Theatre Building Chicago. There are multiple shows per night. For tickets or more information, see www.chicagosketchfest.com or call 312-327-5252.
Sketchfest illustrates comedy's drawing power
February 11, 2003, Reviewed by Jennifer Saba
"MEAT "
The word "meat" certainly conjures up strong images, particularly when it's applied to an all women comedy troupe. Thankfully, the pun stops there.
During a recent performance at The Red Room in New York, "MEAT: Rare Sketch Comedy Well Done" treated a 30-person audience to a show more akin to the goofiness of "Saturday Night Live" than any program on the Oxygen Network. That's not to say the group didn't venture into gal-power territory -- with sketches featuring Martha Washington, a trip to the gynecologist and, of course, a lesbian dalliance.
But these vignettes were done in an artful, fresh way. The actors didn't have any agenda other than to make people laugh.
The women of "MEAT" …say they chose the provocative name as "the answer to America's search for smart, fresh, unapologetic, delicious sketch comedy." And for the most part, they delivered, especially as the show gathered steam.
Once Livia Scott took the stage as 'Cynthia Falconcrest,' a withering film critic donning an ermine stole and one leather glove (just one), the show took off. As she tugged on her furry wrap, Falconcrest delivered a scathing critique of Julia Roberts, dishing cliched one-liners like, "Her career flat-lined." She even managed to spear Hollywood, film critics, PETA and Charlton Heston in one fell swoop.
Even the gynecologist sketch was hilarious in its absurdity. Becky Poole played 'Dr. Jan Rosenthal,' an angry deaf doctor who screams, "Of course we're going to test you for everything. Slut!" By the time the actors performed the closing sketch about an all-girl punk band, where one member sips rubbing alcohol, it was hard to believe the show was over.
January 12, 2004
By Allan Johnson, Tribune staff reporter
…Although Stephanie Stearns of the Los Angeles troupe Lester McFwap said because "L.A. is so spread out" the sketch community there is small ("It's not like there's a bar where we all go and hang out"), Reggan Holland, one of the four-woman New York-based group MEAT, felt her city did emulate some of Chicago's kinship. Still, "you have a lot more of an understanding of sketch here in Chicago," she conceded. You would think MEAT had some Chicago-influenced understanding, based on its rousing performance Saturday night. That group, along with the gonzo Chicago troupe the Mantasticks, were two early favorites, ensembles with the wit, flair and sass that would make "SNL" envious. MEAT brought energy and sass in a variety of edgy, silly skits over the course of roughly 45 minutes.Castmates Becky Poole and Livia Scott played two evil-seed sisters trying to scare a new nanny, saying how the last nanny "mistook" rat poison for sugar and then asking the replacement: "How do you take your tea?" In another bit, Holland asked her grandmother (Elizabeth Ellis, looking eerily like "SCTV" great Catherine O'Hara) about sexual orientation. The bit then flashed back to a younger grandma's (Scott) encounter with high school tough-girl (Poole), which turned into a 1950s pop song on being gay. Scott and Holland played two deer plotting to save their species from automobile attacks everywhere. The twist? They spoke with German accents for no apparent reason. MEAT worked bits with a reckless abandon, sacrificing civility to bring the funny to a highly appreciative audience. Like MEAT, the Mantasticks bypassed safe, easy comedy, attacking the art form with pushy skits that would have felt unfortunate if they had been performed without the troupe's obvious confidence in the material.